Pompeii With Two Eyes

I like ruins.  You know, the leftovers from what once was something. I have a particular affinity for the ruins  of cities.  They always pique my curiosity and imagination. One such city is Pompeii in southern Italy. It is now a World Heritage Site with 2.6 million visitors per year. Recently we visited it.

The train from Sorrento was crowded, but not as crowded as the previous day's five o'clock train from Naples to Sorrento.   Pompeii is one of the many stops between Sorrento and Naples. The entrance to the attraction was also very crowded, but we bought our tickets and followed the crowds through the gates of the city. Pompeii was a Roman city of the first century A.D. with some 20,000 residents. The city had a gymnasium, two theaters, laundries, restaurants, a mill, an amphitheater, and the usual shops and dwellings. While there are a number of Roman cities which exist as ruins Pompeii is unique. The city was buried under the volcanic ash of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. The ash from Vesuvius simply covered the city, snuffing out all life. Because of the method of destruction some unique features are displayed. For example, all life buried by ash decomposed over time leaving a negative image or recess in the solidified ash. That fact made it possible to fill these voids with plaster and create an exact image of the living thing whether man or beast. It is eerie looking at them and realizing that these are the exact plaster replicas of the living on that fateful day in 79 A.D. Pompeii was a large city with all the infrastructure of modern cities. The paved streets have stepping stones across them so pedestrians would not have to step on the waste water and sewage in the streets. The city's water was supplied by viaduct and distributed via lead pipes.  I wonder about the instances of lead poisoning with lead pipes.  The distribution system insured that critical needs were met first when the water supply was low. There is a great display of Roman plumbing systems at the museum at Pont du Gard, France.  Another fascinating thing was the shops for selling food on the street. The counter tops had recessed cut-outs for cooking pots.  There are very few buildings with roofs in the ruins of Pompeii, but the public bath has a roof. In many ways the procedure at the baths is similar to Japanese style.  The pool of hot water is not for bathing but for soaking. These waters were usually heavily laden with minerals. The bath in Pompeii is in a vaulted structure lavishly decorated. There are several rooms for bathing, changing clothes, and soaking. I did not see the facility for heating the water, but it may have been heated geothermally like the bath waters in Bath, England. All

structures in the ruins have numbers which correspond to captions on the map you get at the entrance. There are temples to various gods and a forum for the local government. Several private homes, or rather what is left of them, depict the architecture of the era. It seemed that each had a formal entryway leading to a courtyard with various rooms around the perimeter. On many the ancient frescoes still adorned the walls. There were storage rooms, rooms for preparing food, and dining rooms. One thing noticeably absent was a toilet. I'm sure there were public toilets available in the city.  We have seen Roman toilets in Vaison de la Romaine, France and Ephesus, Turkey.  Mosaics were the common decoration along with frescos.  In the house of the Faun there is a mosaic of the Battle of Issus which was between Alexander the Great and Darius, King of Persia.  This large work of art is on the floor and measures almost nine feet by seventeen feet. This particular house even had a private bath indicating the wealth of its owner.

We ventured along  the ancient street and stopped in front of a house that had a large number of female tourists peering inside. I heard some feminine giggles.

"I wonder what's that's about?" I said.

"I'll get closer," said Claudette as she made her war way through the group of women four deep. "You won't believe this!" she exclaimed.

I managed to get through the crowd as it dispersed and joined her at the rail which prohibited entry into the ruins of the house. She was right. I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it. In the foyer of the house was a wall painting which measured about two feet in height.  It was of a man  in period dress. Visible below the hem of his short robe was his large penis.

"Can you believe that?" she asked.

"Somebody had an active imagination!" I said.

"Or did they?"she added with wink.

"It's about fertility rites, or so it says in the guide book," I said in an effort to have the last word.
Actually, paintings considered pornographic by some were fairly common in the city.

The most fascinating building for me was the mill and bakery. In industrial parlance it would be referred to as vertical integration.  Grain, probably wheat, was ground into flour and then baked into bread at the some location. The millstones were different from anything I had seen before. I was familiar with the flat round mill stones. Grain is introduced between the two stones. One of the stones is stationary, while the other moves. As the grain moves from the center of the stone to the outer edge it is ground into flour.

Falling water is the most common source of power.  But these grindstones were conical, with the stationary stone fitting inside another stone thereby creating the grinding surface. The power source was either human or animal. At this location in Pompeii there were four grinding and milling stone installations.  Due to the location I believe they were operated by human power, probably slave labor. This was the first mill I had seen, although I had seen other Roman mill stones before.

Another interesting fact I discovered was the construction methods of columns. There were columns carved from a solid piece of stone. (The most valuable were those carved from the purple marble of Egypt.) The most common were the brick columns covered with  a mixture of marble dust and plaster. Some were carved from sections of marble and stacked on top of each other. Others were constructed from a custom molded brick which produced a fluted column. The Romans were very ingenious engineers which is witnessed by the longevity of some of their structures.

It was a beautiful sunny day in southern Italy as we wandered around the ruins.  We were listening to walking tours narrated by Rick Steves we had downloaded to our cell phones.  This

was very helpful and informative. However, portions of the site are frequently closed for additional archaeological exploration or repairs. Although many of the relics are in the museum in Naples there is still plenty to see in this large World Heritage Site. We opted not to see the amphitheater.  We had seen several of them elsewhere.

It was a good day at the ruins of Pompeii, but sometimes it was difficult walking on the stone streets where Vesuvius loomed. We took the train back to Sorrento where we enjoyed a great evening meal.

Note: The modern city of Pompeii is spelled Pompei.